Days 3 and 4: On the Open Road, Illinois to Texas!

Day 3: Illinois to Missouri.

Driving is one of those things that makes you think. Later on (Day 5) Uncle Kurt called it "Windshield Time" - it's time where you get a lot of not talking to anyone else, thinking yourself, and basically being responsible for yourself.

I feel as if just this part of the trip has made me a bigger person. Perhaps these pictures can sufficiently express that, maybe even along with the video .

++as a side note, the video will be included at a shortly later date: my guess is, somewhere in Georgia++

So I left North Henderson a little later than I had expected. I have learned that it's better to leave earlier in the morning to travel... but for that it's good to have had a good night's sleep, which I haven't seemed to be getting GREAT sleep or anything... but I'm getting ahead of myself.


DISCLAIMER:
I wanted to be able to show you all as much of what I am seeing as I can. For that reason, I'm snapping quick shots (I'm not even looking through the viewfinder or anything, it's just set on auto) and I guarantee you, I'm being as safe as possible doing that. I'm sure that there is some law somewhere that tells you not to, but on the same hand, it's really not much different to me than drinking soda on the road. I just wanted to point that out before someone got all "Momma" on me telling me I shouldn't be taking pictures while driving. I KNOW I probably SHOULDN'T be, but I'm doing it as safely as possible. Thank you for any concern!


From North Henderson, IL, I took a few flies with me in the car. I think they finally left by the time I was going somewhere through Oklahoma. (which was a day later, btw)


Illinois is a funny state... it's only pretty in the places I never hear of.

I think I've been to Peoria twice in my life. This time I drove through it. The coolest thing of note was this building...


And who could forget my Sarah Connor face?


This is probably what I look like 60% of the time: those sunglasses are amazing, but they do horrible things to my peripheral vision: if the traffic ends up being 3 lanes, I don't like using them at all. Strange, that. Would that I could find a decent pair of sunglasses that both look cool AND are good for my vision...


I may have forgotten to mention that minus the time that we stopped over at the airport before we got to Florida four years ago, the last time I was in Missouri was when I was about six years old, maybe seven at most. Grandpa Fisher drove me out to see my Dad when Dad still lived in Columbia. Yeah that means it's been 19 years since I last drove on these streets... and I certainly wasn't behind the wheel...

Here's St. Louis...


You will note that the picture also has a billboard. the billboard, I noticed later while looking through my shots... is a Steak n Shake billboard. I can't even get away from the diabolical company when I drive 1,000 miles away.

The trees and hills are much taller in Missouri. Dad put it as "it's like driving into Oz."


I am inclined to agree with him.

...Save for the fact that Oz was never quite this humid and hot.


Which isn't so bad, I suppose. I haven't been in heat for a good, long while. It really only got worse, though.

Malcolm, you asked for a picture of my car: a full picture. Here ya go.


He's usually not this dirty, but Thomas Jefferson is running the long haul right now :)

There was a wonderfully hazy sunset that evening - accompanied by a large front.


The front, sadly, led to just a slight amount of heat lightning, and no water to cool us off (trumpet sad sound).

I stayed that night--as you know--in Joplin, MO. Again, a video will be added here as soon as I'm able to get it onto the internets... It was a scarier town than I remember hearing about... and apparently more than Dad remembers as well.




Day 4: Missouri to Texas.

It was nearly mid-day when I passed through Oklahoma. I had forgotten (which is sad) about the Trail of Tears, and that I would be driving through a fair amount of Indian country. While cool, is still sad. Oklahoma felt very lonesome, even through its large city.

Much of the highway area looked like this:


And after paying four dollars for the toll there... I decided that I would drive the rest of the Oklahoma drive on non-toll roads. I'm not sure how much time or gas I wasted... but the rest of the country I drove through was sure pretty looking...

I had to stop for gas. The first city that came up? Claremont. It's Will Rogers' hometown!!


I had to actually ask Dad if I was remembering Will Rogers correctly: as a cowboy, a singer, and a movie star. Dad said he was all of the above, and a pretty cool dude. I wish I could have stayed longer to learn a little more about him, but... thus is the way of the roadtrip.


Speaking of ways of roadtrips: I had entered finally, into an area that was kind of weird. For instance, buildings started becoming... stranger. An example?


This Curves building is obviously a church. A beautiful little one, by the looks of it. But if you're going to purchase an old church for your business... wouldn't you take the cross down? It's misrepresentation, I feel. I thought I was approaching the town's first church or something... nope, just a women's workout center.

I took this next shot just for my sister, Sarah:


Here you go, dude. The birthplace of Hanson. the skyline of Tulsa, OK. Tulsa looked really broken down... at least the parts I drove through. Again, I wished I could have gotten out and seen some of the local area... but I had to book it!

I had forgotten to mention this: Oklahoma reminds me in quite a few ways of Illinois: 1) they have a lot of grassland, a few more trees, and "watering holes" ... and actually, just as much construction. Missouri's roads were a welcome respite from having driven down the whole length of IL - but Oklahoma? It was driving through Illinois all over again, but prettier countryside and hotter... much, much, hotter.

It began to look like a Western.


When I veered off and took the "non-toll" route, I drove through some pretty cool areas... that had buildings that looked kind of like this:


Sure enough, though, after the 20mile an hour tinytown, you would drive into the 65 mile an hour cowboy country :)


I think that this is the first Land Oil Rig I ever did pass by (cool!)


I then crossed into Texas.
Which, let me tell you, has better roads--but I'm convinced the drivers are worse than in Chicago.
No, really. They don't know how to drive on an Interstate. How frustrating.
They have the prettiest skies though :)


Wait, oh that's why the skies were pretty: they were going to open up on us?


Worst wasn't over yet...


Honestly, I'm surprised I actually made it to Grandma's. There was a time period in there where it was raining so hard I couldn't read the signs. It was at this point that I was extremely grateful for the lending of the Tom-Tom to me... because while I personally couldn't read the signs, the Tom-Tom still knew where I was and could direct me. It was some rough driving, that last two hours, but I got here!!

And with a rainbow at the end, to boot!


So here I am in a little ol' area called Lake Worth, right outside of Fort Worth... I'm staying with my Awesome Grandma Kortokrax (my Mom's Mom) and her hilarious Shih-Tzu, JP.

More to come!